Banter
by Trickssi
Summary: Young Sirius and Remus are procrastinating on sleep. Please read and review.


"**Banter"**

**Trickssi 8.16.05**

**A short piece dedicated to my role-playing buddy. Basically fluff with sad undertones. They're in… sixth or seventh year, I suppose. This was created (in my head; the conversation occurred, anyway) literally the day before HBP came out and CelticWolf and I thought it was bitterly ironic that we joked about Remus being straight… and then, oh look, little miss Tonks out of nowhere decides to take a _canon_ball to our ship. Different woman every night, eh, Remus? Oh well. I still ship WolfStar. I kind of wrote this to convince myself that it was still possible, that this universe I'd been living in that was so full of love still existed. There are lots of lovely little parallels. **

**Anyway, thanks for choosing my humble fic in a sea of millions. Please review; show me that the ship ain't sunk.**

"What time is it?"

"Beats me."

"Well, you've got a watch on your side table."

"... What happened to your fabled impeccable sense of time?"

"I don't feel like using it."

"Guess, then."

"I don't want to guess. I want you to get your watch and tell me!"

"I'll get my watch if you give it a try."

"... Fine. Ten-thirty?"

Remus swung his torso away from the mattress and reached for his watch through the burgundy velvet curtains. He struggled not to fall off, using his hand as a base so that he could lean farther. Groping, he grabbed the watch and reeled back inwards.

"You could have just said, '_Accio_.'"

"You're such a hypocrite, Sirius Black." He strapped the watch to his left wrist and covered the time.

"Am not."

"Are, too."

"Am not. Show me the time, you sod." He really was a hypocrite, though.

"... You lose. Eleven forty-five."

"Augh," Sirius wailed in defeat. "I was close." He nestled his head back at the edge of the pillow upon which Remus had already settled.

Remus smiled at him. "No it wasn't," he said wryly.

"Was if you want me to stay right _here_." Sirius touched his nose to the other boy's. "I have to go back to my own bed at eleven, you know. Very strict schedule, what with mid-term examinations soon."

"Prick," Remus sighed. "You don't really have to go, do you? Peter's not come back, and James won't mind if he does."

"Well... It could stay ten-thirty for a while if I want it to."

"I want it to."

"I want it to, too."

"M'kay." There was a slight pause. "Tutu… Ha… Padfoot wants a tutu..."

"... Yup. Big pouf-y tutu. Pink, too. That's exactly what I want."

"... Yup." He shrugged his body closer to Sirius's and cautioned to brush his knee against the mirroring one. It lit Sirius's senses to a degree that the touching expansion of flesh became almost a branch of his own body, and when it was pulled away abashedly he was disappointed to let the contact end. In the moment when Remus loosed the steadfastness of his knee's movement Sirius let his own joint follow for a time before letting the connection go. Neither acknowledged the tiny affection; it was not necessary in the abject darkness to even remember the event had occurred.

Moments later, Sirius began again, "You're shy of me, aren't you, Moons?"

Remus made a face, but it was never properly received. "Don't say it like that. It's not true when you say it like that. I'm not shy of you," he explained desperately.

"You're afraid of the others hearing."

"... I'm not, I'm really not." He further withdrew his body by scrunching his legs up and making the contact with his nose only a contact with his forehead.

"Well what the buggering bloody hell are you afraid of if it's not me or them, Remus? There's really not much to fear when you think on it a whit. You're so damn lonely you would figure you'd appreciate it!"

"I'm not afraid of it! And I would, but I have morals and... I just want to wait," he said, meeker by the syllable.

"Morals, Moony? Like I don't have them or some nonsense like that. Just because of my motorbike. You, of all people!" Sirius fumed. Angrily he shifted to his side, facing the staid and jaded curtain. "And all I wanted—I'm going to go back to—"

"Don't go, Padfoot, don't! I didn't mean it like that. What I meant—" Remus wrenched Sirius from trying to rise and pulled him closer by the shoulder. "What I _meant_ was that I've been taught all my life to wait until marriage, and you know that."

"That'd do you a ruddy lot of good, _wifey_, seeing as to where we're headed."

"You know what I'm trying to say! And anyway, it's not that I don't want to. I just don't want to _now_, _here_. We could make it memorable, you know?"

Sirius sighed into the incomprehensible abyss. "It _will _be memorable," he insisted.

"_Sirius_."

"... What?"

"... Couldn't you wait until we're christening our own kitchen without having to worry about a flatmate wandering in...! Aw, come on. You are so damn impatient," Remus scolded in response to the sodden scowling. "Like a child."

"... Like a woman," he retorted.

"You'd better watch out. I could be one, in the end."

Sirius again faced his friend, foreheads pressed together. How could Remus deny this? "But you're not."

"How would you know?"

"How would _you_?"

"Maybe I'm observing women behind your back."

"Observing as in...?"

"... Maybe I'm dating some."

"Oh, right, and maybe you're buggering them, too, right under my nose."

Remus chuckled, lifting his finger to Sirius's nose and muttering, "Yup. For all you know I'm straight as a pole."

"For all you let me know," Sirius said to himself. He found the other boy's stray hand and enlaced his left with it. Remus's hand was neither accepting nor spiteful; it tended to tease its partner by letting fingers trace the outline of opposing fingers, detailing every fingernail, knuckle, valley of flesh webbed between digits. The silence grew as the need for sentences diminished and the pups were entangled in the puzzle of the other's hand. What light could not reveal was the intricateness of movement observed through concentration.

His hands are rough, thought Sirius. Not unpleasantly rough, but something of a hard worker. Welts from writing essays; well that would be Moony, go figure. Bitten cuticles. He is afraid, Merlin. But why is he so afraid of something? His hands are perfectly crafted to me, especially when they're moving. Watch him play the piano; he isn't afraid of the keys, not even the accidentals. Sharps and flats. Sweaty palms. But it's not bad at all, no. It's real. Kind of grainy with the dryness and worn skin, but it's wonderful. And anyway, my hands aren't the smoothest.

Finally, fingertips matched and thumb poised in the center of the other palm, Remus spoke. "Yep. Straight as a pole."

"As a pole, now?"

"Like that one there—" He indicated a post at the edge of his bed with a tilt of his head. Of course, Sirius could not see what he referenced, but through the tension in the other boy's hand he knew. The pole of the four-poster. Ha.

"Remus, you know that pole's not a pole. 'S not straight enough," he said.

"Yes it is. Straight enough."

"No, see, I can't show you now, but the little things on the top have ridges and go like a cone, you know? And the whole thing has little slopes."

"You're too observant," was the reply. His hand was more committed to the contact and the assurance of the bond now; it was a preventative measure. It wasn't the swales between fingers because he would find the scars. Just hold on to the skeletal structure of the hand. "It's close enough."

"No it isn't."

"Yes it is... I have twenty illegitimate children. That's how straight I am."

"Prick. No you haven't. All you've got is an owl," Sirius said calmly at his banter.

"No, I have them. And all different women. Straight as a pole."

"Now, that's just impossible."

"No 's not. It's im_probable_."

"You'd only have so much sperm. And you'd get tired out. And you'd have to miss an Astronomy class every week, and minus one night for the Wolf... That's nearly a woman a night for a month."

"... What if I don't do it that way?" Remus questioned, grinning, hand twisting against its companion. The heat began to build up; his hand made Sirius's sweaty.

"Hm? How d'you do it, then, love?"

"... 'M a donator."

This sent Sirius into a peal of mad laughter. He gribbed the hand until he could regain regular breath. "Who... That killed me, Moony. Donat—hahahaha... ha... wow."

"I am!"

"S-so... you won't let me touch you but you can let a strange bloke claiming to be a doctor wank you off for charity," he posted for clarification.

"Ha... Bint."

"What?"

"It's some soggy old bint wanking me off, not a strange bloke. I'm straight, remember?"

"... Got to be old, has she?"

"... Maybe she can be whatever she wants. Maybe I'm with a different witch when I go, the ones that want children and all. That better than being wanked off in a sanitary facility, mate?"

"Yes," Sirius said decidedly, playing along. "Different one every time, that has to be tough emotionally."

"Well you know how it is, every bitch in Hogwarts after you and all..."

"Isn't it ironic that I'm the one with every witch-bitch at Hogwarts trying to get in my trousers and you're the one who's got twenty or more to yourself."

"Yeah, you'd never think," Remus stated. Sleep grasped heavily, slurring his thoughts. Not like anything was being construed as sane in his bed on a given day, anyhow.

"Couldn't think you'd get _one_."

"Maybe I have only got one."

"Oh?"

"... Metamorphagus." Both boys had a short fit of giggles that had to be stifled in the case that James had returned from his conquests of one Lily Evans. Suddenly, Sirius stopped altogether.

"Hm. That's disgusting."

"Why's it?"

"I have a cousin, about three now, and she's something of a Metamorphagus."

"Ha-ha, so you think it's her I'm buggering, eh? Now I'm a pedophile, too. Or maybe you're just jealous 'cause I love your tiny itsy-bitsy cousin more...?"

"... Maybe," Sirius said nonchalantly. He released his grasp on Remus's hand; gently he separated their skin, and he noticed how sweaty his palms had become. It seemed foreign. He didn't mind because it was Remus's sweat. Remus, however, minded very much the loss of the hand, though it was quickly remedied by its reappearance upon his mousey-brown hair.

"Hmm... 'M not straight," Remus purred, nudging the hand in his hair. He would never come out and say it but having his hair played with was one of Remus's very favourite favours.

"Hn, no?"

"A little. I'm just a little bit of a pouf."

"Just a little?"

"Uh-hunh... enough," he said. His tired voice was a whisper.

"Ah, love," Sirius sighed. He took his hand from Remus's scalp and let it escape to rest upon his own body.

"Mmmnh," protested Remus. He set his hand on Sirius's head now, and brushed stray hairs behind him. See, this is what I want, he tried to say. Sirius did not resume the combing but instead pulled Remus closer, foreheads again touching; his hand gravitated to Remus's back.

Remus had really wanted to say something just then, something. He could not seem to remember for a moment. It was actually that he had a spot on his back that was the most ticklish, and it's near the middle; and secretly, Sirius, would you try to find it. But Sirius would find it less than a year later, and Remus was too exhausted to recall that this was actually what he had wanted to say.

Sirius's other arm was losing circulation and it was far too hot to be comfortable under the three winter blankets. Muttered, "M' arm's falling asleep." Or, heard, "'M falling asleep."

"Yeah, me too. We should go to sleep now," Remus said. Unthinking, he loosed his arm and faced his side of the curtain. With the excuse broken Sirius was forced to retract his arm and budge away. Leave sleepy Remus alone.

"... Goodnight, then, love," he pleaded.

"... 'Night."

It would be some time before he himself would fall asleep. He couldn't forget Remus's lips on his back, Remus's hair in his hand, Remus's tacit promise to share a flat... Remus's fear. He wanted to fall asleep. He wanted tomorrow to come. He wanted to be able to keep that sort of connection in the daylight. He wanted the daylight. He wanted too much.

Sirius's bed was unbearably frigid and vacant until the end of his days at Hogwarts. He couldn't help but wonder if that's how Remus's felt, too... but he never asked.


End file.
